[HN Gopher] Modern Malaise ___________________________________________________________________ Modern Malaise Author : mikalauskas Score : 42 points Date : 2022-08-13 18:11 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (ava.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (ava.substack.com) | andrewmutz wrote: | The problem is not that wages are growing too slowly, that is the | symptom. | | The problem is that productivity is growing too slowly. | | Fixing the problem requires far more technology and automation | than we have delivered. | jackcosgrove wrote: | If productivity grows primarily because of enabling capital, | the proceeds from this growth will accrue more to the owner of | capital than the laborer, roughly proportional to the | contribution of each. | | The problem is that human capital has saturated for many | people. This is borne out by stagnating gains in education. | | If productivity gains occur mostly because of technology with | little human input, then that further bifurcates society | between owners of that technology and everyone else. This does | not help alleviate the modern malaise. | | People are quick to point out the dropping of the gold | standard, the end of cheap fossil fuels, the neoliberal | economic changes, etc. that all occurred during the 1970s, and | those all matter. But there's another factor which is that | educational outcomes began to stagnate. | | I don't think returning productivity growth to the postwar rate | would have as much of an effect as it did then, because more of | the productivity growth would be because of technology with | concentrated ownership rather than broad gains in human | ability. | burlesona wrote: | I think a major problem with globalization is that workers in | relatively wealthy nations don't care that workers in relatively | poor nations are doing massively better than they were a | generation or two ago. Being able to buy cheaper stuff from | abroad is a no substitute for experiencing upward mobility | yourself. | peatfreak wrote: | I was taking this article seriously until I arrived at the | Terrence McKenna bit. His opinions are highly subjective, based | on personal experience with drugs, and they aren't a compelling, | testable, or comparable line of thought. Not to mention that TM | is pretentious as hell and basis his whole outlook on life on | doing loads of DMT (he hardly talks about anything else). | oarabbus_ wrote: | Not only that, Terrence McKenna followed by Ayn Rand | svnpenn wrote: | > https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl/status/1335725267340251137 | | Even people in the top 10% are making basically nothing. This was | taken two years ago, but I would suspect the current situation is | the same or worse. I'm not sure how to fix this, but I think | something should be done. People in the top 1% or 0.1% should | make more per month than someone in the top 10%, but the | difference shouldn't be this stark. | cercatrova wrote: | Why should the difference not be so stark? That's how the power | law works, most people follow only a few accounts. | svnpenn wrote: | > That's how the power law works | | who says that the payout distribution has to follow the power | law? And even if it does naturally, OnlyFans doesn't have to | just let it happen. They could take a bigger cut from the | larger accounts, and distribute it such that the payouts are | more linear. | svnt wrote: | If they do this, won't they just fracture and drive the | larger accounts elsewhere? | svnpenn wrote: | If every single user wants to be a soulless robot (pure | capitalism), then yes. However if the userbase | understands that larger accounts will be subject to | larger fees, _in order to support smaller accounts_ , | then I would like to think at least some users would | support that. Not everything in life has to be decided on | a purely selfish basis. | oarabbus_ wrote: | >who says that the payout distribution has to follow the | power law? | | The payout distribution is proportional to the number of | subscribers, which follows a power law. | | >And even if it does naturally, OnlyFans doesn't have to | just let it happen. They could take a bigger cut from the | larger accounts, and distribute it such that the payouts | are more linear. | | How is taking a larger relative cut from the content | creators bringing in the most traffic a good (much less | optimal) business decision? | metadat wrote: | Do YouTube, Insta, and TikTok also have similar | distributions? | | Maybe slightly less skewed but these sorts of networks seem | to promote a winner-takes-all situation for each | differentiated subsegment. | paulpauper wrote: | _In the 80s Thatcher and Reagan broke down trade barriers and | ceded government power to banks and corporations. This created a | consumer world driven by debt, where everything was assessed by | utility. Politics essentially "became a wing of management, | saying that it could stop bad things from happening instead of | imagining how things could be better."_ | | Consumer debt has fallen since the peak in 2007-2009 or so. | | https://i0.wp.com/www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/... | | Rather spending seems to be driven by the wealthy, upper-middle | class, who don't need as much debt to consume and boost the | overall economy. | | _Now politics feels like pantomime, with both parties bickering | over social issues while neither has the political will to | meaningfully affect the economy. Curtis: "Online psychodramas | create waves of hysteria that make it feel like the world is | transforming. In fact, nothing actually changed in the last four | years. Trump made himself a pantomime villain, and we booed | rather than imagine an alternative."_ | | Agree. I think the power of the federal government to affect | change peaked in 2001-2008 or so, first with massive buildup | homeland security and defense apparatuses following 911, and then | in 2008-2009 during the financial crisis . After that the federal | government has significantly stopped having influence as far as | policy is concerned. Rather, much if its power is through | administrative functions, like the FBI , NSA, IRS, SEC, etc. | | _Money became our religion, and now money is starting to run | dry, as the world's largest economies slow in their growth. Both | democracies and dictatorships are in a moment of crisis._ | | Money is like a religion, but scant evidence to suggest it's | running dry. As stocks and home prices boom since 2020, there is | more wealth than ever before. | | _Purchasing power hasn't changed in the past 40 years, according | to the Pew Institute: "Today's real average wage (that is, the | wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same | purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there | have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of | workers._ | | Again, you have to look at the top 10% or so. That is where the | purchasing power is coming from...stuff like Disneyland tickets, | NFL tickets, lifted trucks, expensive elective cosmetic | procedures, home renovations, and so on. | | _All meritocratic platforms are winner-take-all, with the top 1% | of performers collecting a vastly disproportionate share of | rewards. Look at Substack and Onlyfans. This is not a conspiracy | engineered by anyone: when anyone is allowed to compete, a small | percentage of people tend to capture most of the profit._ | | It's been like this for a long time, and recent trends have only | accelerated this. The Ivy League is more importent and | competitive than ever before; Covid has not changed this at all. | Same for top 50 schools overall. Same for high stakes testing, | math competitions, top tech & finance jobs, etc...everything more | competitive and difficult. More people applying, fewer people | getting in. Winners get bigger and bigger, whether it's top | Substack content creators or Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. | | _The American dream, the idea that anybody could make a good | living for themselves and their family through nothing but hard | work, has become far less realistic. You know the Steinbeck line | about how Americans think they're temporarily embarrassed | millionaires instead of exploited proletariat. But they don't | believe that anymore, do they?_ | | It's still realistic if you have a high IQ, choose a good career, | and have good work ethic...people in tech, consulting, finance, | healthcare, law, etc. making record income even after accounting | for student loan debt and inflation. (The so-called school to | career STEM pipeline.) Reddit 'FIRE' subs are full of such | individuals, in their 20-40s, doing just that, with not | uncommonly millions of dollars. But for those at the middle/left- | side of the IQ distribution, maybe not so much. They tend to rely | more so on lottery-like systems of success/promotion compared to | more meritocratic ones. | https://greyenlightenment.com/2022/03/19/losers-iq-and-the-l... | | _This clearly isn't true, since people obviously aren't free: | they're controlled by socioeconomic circumstances._ | | And also biological constraints, like again, IQ. But I have also | read many stories on Hacker News and Reddit of people born in the | lower-middle class or worse circumstances rising up due to high | intelligence and getting scholarships and landing decent-paying | jobs. | | Good article...a lot of food for thought. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-08-13 23:00 UTC)